News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, March 2013

CPJ mourns the death this month of Anthony Lewis, one of the
organization's founding board members and a recipient of its 2009 Burton
Benjamin Award for lifetime achievement. Lewis passed
away on March 25.

"Back in 1981, when CPJ was being formed and its board of
directors assembled, Tony Lewis ... was one of the first people we approached," Michael
Massing, CPJ's co-founder and board member, wrote in the CPJ
Blog. "At the time, CPJ was an idea without money, office, or staff, but
Tony at once saw the value of such an organization and signed on. His presence
on CPJ's board and masthead helped give the organization immediate credibility;
his devoted participation was invaluable as we expanded in size and mission
over the next 30 years."

Lewis was a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, a former New York Times columnist, and one of the
foremost thinkers on freedom of speech and First Amendment rights.

The 35-member states ratified the ability of the commission
to continue receiving voluntary contributions. Analysts and human rights
advocates believe the decision was a blow to the countries of the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Americas, known as ALBA, that have been pushing to block the
human rights system from getting outside funding.

The ALBA efforts were countered by sustained support of
international human rights and press freedom groups, including CPJ, which
campaigned toward preserving the independence and autonomy of the IACHR and its
special rapporteur for freedom of expression. On March 18, CPJ sent a letter
to all OAS Foreign ministers urging them to oppose any attempts to debilitate
the regional human rights system.

But the battle is not over. A paragraph in the resolution
instructing the OAS Permanent Council "to continue the dialogue on the core
aspects for strengthening" the system means that Ecuador and its ALBA allies will
most likely continue to push for restrictive reforms. CPJ will continue to
fight any proposals that could make citizens throughout the hemisphere more
vulnerable to press freedom violations.

The CPJ report was released at a press briefing at the
Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong by CPJ board member David Schlesinger
and CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz. CPJ called for China's leaders to
recognize that the Communist Party's crisis of accountability will persist as
long as Beijing keeps up its policy of censorship, propaganda, and retaliation
for reporting on matters of public interest.

The report includes a preface
by Schlesinger, a video
profiling Chinese investigative journalist Liu Jianfeng, and cartoons from the Hexie Farm series by Crazy Crab. The
report garnered internationalcoverage
and attracted significant interest on social networking sites. The
Chinese-language PDF
of the report was downloaded more than 3,000 times in the first week.

Charges dropped against Somali journalist

After sustained advocacy efforts by CPJ and other local and
international human rights and press freedom groups, the Somali Supreme Court threw
out the charges against a 25-year-old journalist who had been imprisoned
for conducting an interview with a woman who alleged she was raped. Abdiaziz Abdinuur was
arrested on January 10 and sentenced to a year in prison for "offending state
institutions" and "false reporting," although he had not published anything
related to the interview. An appeals court later reduced his sentence to six
months.

International news coverage followed the conviction. CPJ
worked hard to publicize the case and wrote a letter
to Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud as well as a series of blogscommenting
on the case. The organization also sent a public
letter to U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of his meeting with
President Hassan. In a reply
to the letter, Cameron told CPJ that he had personally raised the issue during
his February 5 meeting with Hassan.

March also marked the first time that CPJ's Journalist
Security Guide was available in Somali. The
guide is now available in Arabic, English, French, Spanish, and Somali.

Prominent Cuban blogger visits CPJ

"It seemed like an impossible dream, but here I am,"
Yoani Sánchez, the pioneering figure in Cuba's independent
blogosphere, told a gathering this month at CPJ's New York offices. After
being denied
travel authorization at least 20 times in the past, Sánchez stopped by CPJ as
part of her first trip abroad in a decade.

CPJ has consistently
supported Sánchez's brave fight to report freely on developments in Cuba.
We have called for her release
when she was detained, and raised awareness when she was denied
permission to travel abroad and when she suffered other forms of official harassment
in reprisal for her work.

Sánchez told CPJ that she plans to launch a new publication
upon her return to the island nation. If
she succeeds, it will be another landmark for the writer behind Generation Y. That blog, which
revolutionized the information landscape when it debuted in 2007 by offering
critical analysis and coverage, is still mostly inaccessible for the average
Cuban citizen. In February, Sánchez wrote a CPJ blog on how Internet
access is still elusive in Cuba.

Journalists released in Azerbaijan and India

CPJ advocated
widely in recent months for three jailed journalists who were freed in March. Vugar
Gonagov, director of the regional TV channel Khayal, and Zaur Guliyev, Khayal
TV's chief editor, were released
from Azerbaijani jails where they had been held
in pretrial detention for more than a year. Indian TV journalist Naveen
Soorinje was also released
on bail after being jailed for more than four months for documenting an assault
on young women in Karnataka state.

CPJ had covered the journalists' cases extensively. In the
organization's prison census,
conducted on December 1, 2012, Azerbaijan held nine journalists in jail, making
the country the seventh worst jailer of journalists in the world. Indian
journalist Soorinje was one of the three journalists jailed in India at the
time of the census.

CPJ Award winner released in Zimbabwe

Tenacious human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa was
released on March 25 after being jailed for a week and charged with
"obstructing justice." International outrage followed her arrest, including demonstrations, protest letters, and use
of the Twitter hashtag #BeatriceMtetwa.
CPJ also helped advocate on Mtetwa's behalf and appealed in a public
letter to the Zimbabwean justice minister to ensure her release.

In 2005, CPJ awarded Mtetwa its International Press Freedom
Award, the first time a non-journalist has received the honor. In 2008, Mtetwa
returned to New York to receive CPJ's Burton Benjamin Award for lifetime
achievement.

Upcoming

May 2: In the lead-up to World Press Freedom Day, CPJ will
launch its annual Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists
are slain and their killers go free.

May 3: On World Press Freedom Day, CPJ will be represented
at several events around the world including UNESCO's
main event in Costa Rica.

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